My mot recent article, Administrative Patent Levers was accepted for publication in the Penn State Law Review. This article looks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and how they implement rules that are technology-specific and policy-oriented. This is a major departure from the PTO’s prior role since they have historically been limited to [...]
Posted tagged ‘law’
Research Spotlight: Administrative Patent Levers
April 29, 2012Judge Rakoff Holds Bank and Regulator to a Higher Standard
November 30, 2011The Wall Street Journal just ran a noteworthy article on Judge Jed Rakoff’s path-breaking judicial opinion. Judge Rakoff, a federal trial court judge who sits in the Southern District of New York, recently refused to approve a settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Citibank because the settlement omits any facts that would [...]
Supreme Court Issues Wal-Mart vs. Dukes Ruling
June 20, 2011Today, the Supreme Court issued its much anticipated Wal-Mart v. Dukes ruling. In a few days, I’ll post a more in depth analysis of the decision, particularly as it applies to the Court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ central sociological theory, which alleged that Wal-Mart’s corporate culture promoted employment discrimination. The Court ultimately held that this [...]
Research Spotlight: Empirically Testing Scotchmer’s Theory of Sex-Based Risk Aversion
June 13, 2011This post will inaugurate a new feature of this blog. At times, whenever I come across a paper or research talk that poses an interesting legal finding or issue, I’ll profile it as a research spotlight. To kick off this feature, I’ll discuss a paper written by a colleague at Florida State University. Today I [...]
The Rule of Law
February 2, 2011The unrest in the Middle East illustrates what happens in societies where those in power deprive citizens of the rule of law. Absent the rule of law, there is no room for property, markets, freedom or progress. I was first exposed to the concept of the rule of law in a civil liberties course during [...]
A perspective on contract terms
January 15, 2011After teaching contracts for several years, I’m fairly convinced that the following axiom applies whenever anyone enters into a contract: Any agreed upon and legally binding contract terms will either work in your favor, or against you. Contrary to popular belief, contract terms are never neutral. Instead, they will either further your goals and interests, [...]
Letter or Spirit?
January 6, 2011Business Insider posted a story recently about Facebook and the news the company has made working with Goldman Sachs to obtain significant capital investment without going public. The story boils down to Facebook wanting to trade stock for a capital infusion. There is no shortage of people wanting to invest in Facebook stock. A thorny [...]
Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart – Part II
December 22, 2010In the prior post, I mentioned the case of Dukes vs. Wal-Mart, where the trial and appellate courts certified more than a million women in a class-action lawsuit alleging employment discrimination at Wal-Mart stores across the United States. If you are the defendant corporation, you now face the scenario in which millions of individuals allege [...]
Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart – Part I
December 15, 2010Can 1.5 million women stand together in a class-action suit to sue Wal-Mart for employment discrimination? That’s the narrow legal issue that the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to decide by reviewing the Ninth Circuit appellate case Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart. This specific issue gets to the heart of what is known as a class-action [...]
Independent Designers: Here’s a Powerful Tool to Combat Knock-Offs
June 19, 2010I’m always troubled when I hear stories about independent designers who are ripped off by knock-off artists, large retail chains and unscrupulous exporters who take advantage of low-cost manufacturing costs to catch a free ride from a designer’s work. Reporter Christina Binkley wrote an interesting article on this very topic in The Wall Street Journal [...]
